Known ultrasound medical systems include medical systems which use ultrasound imaging of patients to identify patient tissue for medical treatment and which use ultrasound to ablate identified patient tissue (i.e., medically destroy patient tissue by heating the tissue to form a lesion). In one known design, an ultrasound-medical-imaging-only ultrasound transducer is attached on one side of a rotatable shaft and an ultrasound-medical-treatment-only ultrasound transducer is attached on the opposite side of the shaft. In another known design, the ultrasound transducer is an ultrasound-medical-treatment-and-imaging ultrasound transducer wherein medical imaging is done at a lower power and medical treatment is done at a higher power.
In one known example, a transducer assembly includes a single ultrasound transducer having a single transducer element, or an array of transducer elements acting together, to ultrasonically image the patient and/or to ultrasonically ablate identified patient tissue. A known transducer element includes a transducer element having a concave shape to focus ultrasound energy. A known array of transducer elements includes a planar, concave, or convex array of transducer elements. A known array of transducer elements includes an array whose transducer elements are electronically or mechanically controlled together to steer and focus the ultrasound emitted by the array to a focal zone (which may be large or which may be as small as, for example, a grain of rice) to provide three-dimensional medical ultrasound treatment of patient tissue.
Known ultrasound medical systems include medical systems which: deploy an end effector having an ultrasound transducer outside the body to break up kidney stones inside the body; endoscopically insert an end effector having an ultrasound transducer in the rectum to medically destroy prostate cancer; laparoscopically insert an end effector having an ultrasound transducer in the abdominal cavity to medically destroy a cancerous liver tumor; intravenously insert a catheter end effector having an ultrasound transducer into a vein in the arm and moves the catheter to the heart to medically destroy diseased heart tissue; and interstitially insert a needle end effector having an ultrasound transducer needle into the tongue to medically destroy tissue to reduce tongue volume to reduce snoring.
Still, scientists and engineers continue to seek improved ultrasound medical systems.